THE WOMEN OF THE LAMANI TRIBE (India, 2005)

The Lamani gypsies in the south of India are among the lowest castes in that land. Their traditions are all but forgotten. They often live in small villages around cities, where the women are dressed in the standard saris, and not in their own handmade clothing and heavy silver jewellery. In order to see the traditional life of the Lamani, you have to travel to remote villages, where the Lamani live in mud huts or rudimentary brick houses paid for by the government. Their fields look like plots of desert. They cut sugar cane, or crush stone into gravel for road building. Their caste is not permitted other work – nor is it a possibility, given their scant education. Girls marry when they are around thirteen. Although the women do the same work as the men, they are paid only about a third of what the men receive. At the same time, it is the women who keep the families going, by managing the finances, raising the children, and doing the housework.